


Choices (Burn)

by TheRedBedroom



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alexandra Hamilton-Schuyler, Angelica now Azariah (mentioned), Elijah "Eli" Schuyler - Freeform, F/M, Genderbend!, I'm Sorry, I'm really sorry, and kind of rushed, i mostly read some history and then just told the story i wanted, kind of historically based?, sorry for inaccuracies, this is pretty depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 16:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15028634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRedBedroom/pseuds/TheRedBedroom
Summary: (Hamilton Genderbend)Elijah Schuyler has done a fabulous job avoiding his wife- just not the pamphlet.Only, he can't avoid her forever.After talking with his brother, Elijah goes home to try to sort things out. Only to come face to face with his wife instead.





	Choices (Burn)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting my work on Archive and my first time in about two years since I've published anything online. And it's been a really long time since I've written fanfiction. I feel like a such a newbie so be kind- but criticism is completely accepted! Please! Anything you see or think should be added or edited, please tell me in the comments. (I've only moderated the comments because I don't like to see swearing.)  
> Enjoy and thank you soooooooo much for clicking on my meager little one shot.
> 
> On the actual one shot: This is based on the events in the musical that happened after the Reynold's Pamphlet was published (so, pretty much "Burn"). And Genderbent, so there's my toss in. :D

Upon seeing the newspaper lying on top of the other papers on his desk, Elijah sighed. 

It seemed as though he couldn’t get away from the ghastly thing. The reminder of his wife’s… choices. 

Choices that weren’t  _ him _ .

Of course, Elijah knew, from the beginning, Alexandra’s choice had never  _ really  _ been Elijah.

Drawing a hand down his face, Elijah walked back out of his office, away from the downward spiral the newspaper would bring to his thoughts. But upon closing himself away in his- _their_ \- bedroom, Elijah knew that this area wouldn’t do him any better.

In the fireplace, a fire crackled merrily, the maid having prepared it as the evening wore on, and before its warmth, Elijah walked to a small chest that sat high on a bookshelf among other treasured items. The small chest was dainty, made of a warm chestnut and finished with a white gold border. Not anything any respectable man would want to be seen purchasing but Azariah had handed him the box as a joke and Elijah had, to spite his elder brother, made the box something beautiful, something Elijah could never be ashamed of. 

Elijah, with all the reverence he had had when he first held Philip, he pulled out the contents of the box before placing the chest back on its shelf. Then, he slipped to the ground before the fireplace, to examine the thick packages of envelopes all tied together by twine into a neat little bow. The papers were worn, edges soft and seals long broken. Elijah cradled the two thick stacks, placing one carefully in his lap and undoing the bow carefully on the other. As he undid the twine and removed the first letter from its envelope, the door to the bedroom opened, slow enough that the creak of its hinges seemed more like a scream in the quiet of the room.

Or maybe it was just that way to Elijah.

He didn’t have to turn around to know who had slunk in. Didn’t have to turn and see the expression on the face of the intruder to know that it would take only a look for all of Elijah’s carefully built resolve to come crumbling down, for the tears he fought a battle against to win and for them to blur his vision and fall down his face to marr the pages of his most prized possessions.

Instead, Elijah kept his eyes focused on the page before him, reading the twirling script that he had memorized every letter of. Had seen on so many documents. Seen next to his children’s handwriting. Knew the hands that made those same twirls and ignored dotting the ‘i’s and ‘j’s for speed.

Always trying to be faster. 

Always wanting more time.

With a frustrated sigh, Elijah dug into the other letters, opening them all with the same care but it felt urgent,  _ desperate _ . As he opened each letter, Elijah only skimmed it, reading chunks and letting lines blur together before opening the next to do the same.

_ My dearest Elijah,  _ _ The days seem to pass by without end- when will I next see you? _

_My lovely Elijah,_ _As I was walking in the park today, I saw the most beautiful blooming bush, covered in the fullest blossoms of the deepest reds, pinks and violets. It reminded me of my feelings for you-_

 _Wonderful Elijah,_ _How many more days must pass before we are to be together? Do you know that I’ve taken to-_

_ Elijah, it’s strange to go days without seeing you now.. Just your letters and our brief walks have so taken over my life that it feels empty without- _

_ Elijah, I watched the sky tonight. My only regret was that you were not there with me. Is it- _

_ Elijah, I feel silly for saying this. Oh, how you make me silly, but it is only the truth. The honest truth! Elijah, I could never tell you anything- _

_ My love,  _ _ Only time keeps us apart. But soon, no longer, my Elijah- _

Elijah, To Elijah, lovely Elijah, Elijah, My Elijah, my, my, my, _my_ -

“Elijah?”

Elijah froze, hands tightening on the page he held.

The voice was quiet, shy, timid in a way he had never heard it before. Finally, he lost the battle and tears blurred his vision. 

“My love?”

Words shoved at the back of his throat, jumbled in his mouth and stumbled over each other to get to the tip of his tongue and pushed at his lips to escape. Words that wanted to shout and scream and yell and rage at the other voice. Wanted to lash out in every way possible, to in _some way_ manage to get across every bit of pain that cursed pamphlet had treated Elijah to. ‘My love’, as if Elijah was still _hers_ , still somehow he would _stand_ beside _her_ , _her_ who had shoved him away at every possible turn and ignored him at every path and slammed the door in his face so often that Elijah didn’t know what to do anymore when he was so obviously unwanted but still told he was loved and wanted and _needed_. Elijah was _not_ _Alexandra’s_. Not anymore.

Anger built up in his every muscle, burned in his blood, and scalded his eyes as the tears pooled within them.

And yet, when Elijah finally looked up from the blurring letter to see Alexandra, who stood on the other side of the bedroom, awkwardly within the room but outside the door still somehow, he couldn’t gather up that anger into his words. 

“I saved all of them,” the words came out soft, voice broken. “From the beginning, I saved them and kept them treasured in my writing desk. No matter how much Azariah teased me about them. No matter how much he reminded me that you could only be trouble,” a sad smirk “Looks like he was right.”

Alexandra just stood there, saying nothing. Those beautiful blue eyes watched him with a kind of calculation that Elijah had seen when she was writing a particularly trying document or assessing a pamphlet written in the newspaper. Her face gave nothing away, although Elijah, after years of living with her, knew there was a tightness to her mouth and saw the faint crinkle in her eyebrows. Stress, uncertainty. Ha.

Elijah glanced back down at the letters in his hands, that littered the floor around him and his lap. “These were written… so beautifully. All of your attention, all of your devotion, all of your heart seemed to be poured out in them and so I returned it- I could see the world you wanted to build. But I thought- I thought-” Elijah choked. “I thought you wanted to build it  _ together _ .”

“Elijah-” he heard her slipper on the rug, heard it somehow and he looked up at her. Whatever his expression read, she stopped, her hand tight on the post of the bed as though she had paused in pulling herself towards him.

“But I’m looking these over,” his voice cracked again. “And wondering about the letters you sent him. The letters he probably kept. The letters that stole his heart, the way these ones stole mine.”

Elijah looked up to meet those painfully blue eyes, wanting to know if any of this affected her. Those blues were swimming in their own tears now. But Elijah somehow couldn’t find it in himself to stop.

“Did you mean anything in these? Did you write these to me? Or for me? The words say one but your actions say another- you write and your pen moves and yet somehow the words don’t seem to be yours. You sent these words to me but you sent the same words to  _ him _ . And had  _ no shame _ in publishing  _ everything  _ he sent you! Did you share my own letters with your friends, tell them of how you had managed to wrap me around your fingers completely with no regret?”

The anger Elijah had been unable to work into his words, he suddenly found burning his mouth as the words left him. He didn’t notice his hands curling into fists at his sides, crinkling his beloved letters, as he stood to his full height. He managed to completely tower over her when she was half way across the room and although he was barely taller than her, her head craned to meet his own tear-filled eyes.

“Who do you truly love, Alexandra? Me? Azariah? Congress? The _people_? _Who, Alexandra?_ Who is it that you are so desperate to prove to yourself to that your wrote that cursed pamphlet and scattered everything to the winds so that the whole of America could see it? To _whom_ did you need to clear yourself with after the whole affair- to _whom_ was it of the utmost importance that they know the whole, complete, ugly truth _only_ so that you weren’t perceived as stealing money from Congress? To _whom?_ _Nobody knew Alexandra! Not a single soul_ that mattered! So what that Jefferson, Madison and Burr came? They _know_ you and you set the record straight _with them_! The only men who knew and yet you told the whole world! For what gain? Barely a whisper of it in a room and you painted it on the wall in red! What was your goal Alexandra?”

His wife said nothing. Tears fell from her eyes and her mouth wobbled but her chin stubbornly stayed set, her hands clutching her dress and the bed post as though it somehow kept her together as Elijah completely fell apart before her.

“Do you know what Azariah said, Alex?” Alexandra’s shoulders tightened, her lips shuddering as though a sob had almost escaped. “Do you  _ know  _ what he said the minute he came to me! He  _ knew _ , Alex! My brother across the sea somehow managed to know from England! He compared you to Icarus, from the old tale. A child who got so caught up in what he thought he had that he was swallowed by the waves- and I couldn’t find myself to  _ again  _ defend you! You’re  _ obsessed _ Alexandra! Writing and writing, scratching and reworking so many things you hadn't remembered anything outside of what Washington had asked, of what Congress has said, what Burr and Jefferson published.  _ Nothing _ . And I fought every step to prove you to the world and yet you have made it near impossible! What can I possibly _say_ to  _ save  _ you  _now_ , Alexandra? What will you have me do? There’s nothing here that you have given me to work with and nothing that you have that I would  _ want  _ to! Not even Mr. Reynolds had your heart, Alex! Again I ask you _ who?  _ Who are your writing to? Because- what you’re building, you’re destroying as you write.”

Elijah’s fist tightened at his sides, and he ducked his head to fight the sobs himself. Only to see the letters littering his side of the room.

The fire crackled, tears plopped down his face and onto the delicate pages. 

Pages Alexandra had written- and then somehow managed to rewrite because they never mattered.

Words that Alexandra could probably use in other pamphlet. To somehow prove herself again because that was all she did no matter how many times Elijah reassured her, Azariah reassured her, no matter what she actually accomplished. 

No matter, no matter, no matter.

“You’re burning everything down around you Alexandra,” he choked out. “Burning it to rebuild as fast as it’s destroyed. So I’ll help.”

And before she could say a word, before he could give himself a chance to think, he scooped up the letters that littered the floor and walked briskly over to the fireplace.

A gasp, as she realized what he was doing. “Elijah-!”

The fire flashed up hot to kiss his cheeks with heat, drying his tears on his face as it gobbled the dear letters as fast as the words on them had once taken his heart.

He turned, his gaze avoiding Alexandra as he stormed back over to his corner to grab the rest of the littered letters and the last carefully packaged stack to burn as well, anger and frustration and years of pain and hurt and annoyance causing him to crumble them within his hands as he turned quickly on his heel to throw them also within the hearth.

“Stop!” Alexandra burst from her spot where she had stood frozen and ran at him, wrapping her arms around him tightly. Tears wet his shirt and she mumbled into his shirt, excuses and pleas Elijah couldn’t understand and didn’t want to hear.

“I’m done, Alexandra!” he growled, shoving her arms off and making his way around her even as she grasped again at his arm, at his shirt, anything to stop him. 

“Please, Eli!”

“No!” the letters went into the fire and Alexandra collapsed on him, tears finally falling down her face. “You don’t get to use any more of  _ my, _ of  _ our  _ lives to build whatever your trying to build! The world doesn’t get to know about what I felt now- doesn’t get to know my opinion because it does  _ not  _ have to right to pry into  _ my life _ . I want  _ no one  _ to know what goes on with me, with  _ our children _ when what is occurring is only pain and deceit and destruction. I want  _ nothing  _ of it. So everything of yours that has to do with  _ my life _ can burn so you can not use it! For however it could have possibly changed the world’s views, you can do on your own.”

Elijah pulled himself away from her again and she stumbled, looking at him with a tear stained face and a mouth that opened to cry, to plea, to apologize. 

“You’ve given up  _ everything  _ here, Alexandra, for whatever you’re trying to build in your office, in Congress. And you can therefore move everything you love to  _ there  _ because that’s where your heart is.”

Elijah’s breath was coming fast, his vision still blurred and his heart raced in his chest. He turned on his heel and fled.

**Author's Note:**

> I usually don't do notes at the end (especially when my work is so short) but I'd just like to state that this piece is part of a bigger genderbend universe- I'd like to do the whole musical genderbent, but I'm not sure what the reaction will be? (I'm also struggling with the style for Washington and Phillip). If you'd like to see the whole thing, or another song in particular published, please leave the suggestion below.  
> And thanks for clicking on this!


End file.
